My Son Has Lost His Mind
by weiss kittyn
Summary: In L's absence, Raito picks up a few new habits. Souichiro finds himself scarred for life. A mild attempt at humor


"You're... leaving?" Raito looked down at his wrist, slightly bruised from months of prolonged contact with a metal shackle. His arm felt almost weightless now, and he'd grown so used to accomodating the cuff that it felt strange to be without it at last.

"A new string of Kira killings has popped up in the United States. I need to find out if the Kira from Japan has simply relocated or if it's another new Kira. I should only be gone a few days, a week at most. Please take care of the investigation in my absence." He gave a nod, and then followed Watari out, slipping into his shoes before closing the door.

Raito stared at the door for a long while before looking around himself helplessly. It wasn't that he was free; he had no doubts that he wouldn't even make it out the front door, even if he'd wanted to try. It was that he suddenly had personal freedom. He wasn't ruled by L any more - if he wanted to go to bed at six in the afternoon, he was able. If he wanted to shower at midnight, he wouldn't have to wait for Ryuzaki to wake up and uncuff him.

The sheer excitement of the possibilities flickered through his mind and kept him occupied for most of the afternoon. By the time Matsuda came in with dinner, however, he'd settled back down and was actually working, skimming through case-files of Kira's victims and writing down notes about similarities.

"Raito-kun, I brought food," Matsuda said quietly, interrupting Raito's train of thought. Instead of getting irritable with him, as L would normally do, Raito turned around with a smile.

"How kind of you, Matsuda! Thank you." The slightly older man looked surprised at the gratitude. Surprised, but pleased.

"You're welcome. Good luck!" The normally exuberant man waved pleasantly as he left, having done his good deed for the day. Raito spent his time eating, savoring the taste of the food in his mouth.

* * *

Three days into his modified freedom, Raito found himself bored. There were no new cases to be reviewed, nothing had happened, and the rest of the team had taken the day off to spend with their families. Souichiro had been given explicit instructions not to allow Raito out of the building, and it was with regret that he left him behind, but in truth, he didn't mind so much.

He now had the chance to just be _alone_, something he'd been missing lately.

Given the chance to do whatever he wanted, Raito began contemplating L, and the detectives oddball behavior. He claimed that sitting like a normal human being lowered his reasoning ability by fourty percent, something that Raito didn't believe in the slightest. It was just another harebrained excuse to act like a freak and get away with it in polite company.

Seating himself on his computer chair, he contemplated the files before him. Nothing new, or interesting, and he didn't want to hack anything in case it was traced back to him by L.

L. Somehow or another, his thoughts always came back around to the detective. On a whim, he pulled his legs up so that his feet were resting on the chair.

_No change in my reasoning abilites,_ he thought almost gleefully, until he realized that he was sitting wrong. L never sat down before pulling his legs up; he simply crawled into whatever he was sitting on and balanced himself there.

Feeling like an idiot, Raito stood up out of the chair, and tried to mimic the actions he'd witnessed over and over again, of L climbing into a chair and perching on it. It was harder than he made it seem, and it took a while for Raito to get comfortably crouched while still remaining in the same position L usually occupied.

He reached over to the computer and opened the Kira files again, scanning them once more out of boredom than an actual desire to read the information again. He was on the second page when he realized that he'd missed something important the first time, and he quickly factored it into his notes.

After a few moments, he realized that he'd missed it because he'd been slouched in his chair, hardly even seeing the words that appeared before him - and he'd caught them this time because he'd had to be aware of what was happening, due to the fact that he was bent precariously in the chair.

_Fine,_ he conceded grouchily. _Maybe sitting like this does improve his reasoning ability._

* * *

The one week point came and went, and there was still no sign of L. Raito would have thought himself worried, if he let himself think about it. There was new information flooding in from the overseas detective however, and he was still practicing that graceful exiting motion that L employed to remove himself from the chair without tipping it over.

It was sheer hunger that drove him to his next actions, and a lack of anything else available. L stored cakes and cookies in a small refridgerator near the back of the room for 'emergencies' and Raito had skipped lunch. The rest of the task force was on break for the next three days, taking advantage of L's absence to catch up with their families and private lives.

This meant, of course, that there was no one there to bring Raito food - at least no one he trusted not to slip poison into it. He'd boiled water for tea, and took one sip of it before deciding that L put seven to twelve sugar cubes into it all the time because that was the only way it could be stomached. He found himself dropping cubes into the cup one after another, stirring every so often and tasting it until it was drinkable.

The tea, however, only made him hungrier, and it was an act of desperation that drove him to the cake fridge. Returning to the computer chair, he arranged his meal in such a way that it wouldn't be knocked around by his actions on the computer, but he could still reach it comfortably. It was almost a habit now, to climb up into the chair and balance on his feet without actually seating himself, and he did it almost without thinking about it.

Had he stopped to think about how it would look to an outside observer, he may have stopped and hung himself with his socks. As it was, he simply thought about himself, as was the norm for him.

* * *

A week and a half later, Raito had become almost nocturnal. He found that he did his best work when he was alone, because then he could assume his newfound favourite position - L's crouch - without having to worry about strange looks from Matsuda and the rest of them.

Much to his chagrin, once he'd started eating the cakes and sweet tea he found himself unable to stop, which also didn't help his not sleeping at night. Slowly but surely, some of the mysteries that made L who he was were unraveling. At first, he'd tried to fight off the insomnia - going to bed at midnight as was his pre-L norm - but he ended up simply staring at the ceiling for hours before finally drifting off into a restless sleep around three or four in the morning.

The day he acquiesced to his body's demand that he go to sleep no earlier then two in the morning, he dragged a large recliner out of the living quarters three floors up, into the elevator, and finally down into the work room. Instead of leaving the work room to sleep, he simply curled up in the chair, wearing whatever he happened to put on that day.

* * *

Three and a half weeks into L's continued absence, Raito switched to wearing loose jeans and socks, and a comfortable, lightweight green sweater. The rest of the task force had moved their investigation temporarily back into police headquarters, and Raito no longer had anyone to dress up for. The man who restocked the fridge every day came whenever Raito slept, whether it was three int the morning or one in the afternoon, and if he'd bothered to leave his computer once and a while, he'd've seen a remarkable change come over his person.

Three weeks in solitary confinement, speaking to people only over the phone, and he'd turned into a more colourful version of L. His bizarre sleeping habits had formed dark circles under his eyes, and he was beginning to find it uncomfortable to sit properly these days. His wardrobe was reminiscent of the absent detective, and he could often be found eating cakes and cookies.

He was attempting L's method of holding things, using no more than two fingers per hand at any given moment, wondering if maybe that had anything to do with the genius behind the madness. He was holding a printout of the latest Kira murders with two fingers in one hand, and was stirring sugar into his tea with the other. He was so engrossed in the act of reading that he didn't hear the door open.

"Raito, I've just heard from L..."

Yagami Souichiro stopped dead in the doorway, wondering if maybe L hadn't beaten him back to the building. A closer inspection revealed that no, it was simply his son - sitting like L, dressed like L, eating like L -- was that a cake?!

When Raito reached up with his other hand and dropped the topmost paper to the side without touching it with more than his index finger and thumb, Souichiro turned around and walked out the way he'd come without bothering to stop his son.

He stepped out into the fresh air of the outside, and pulled his cell phone out, pressing the redial button quickly. "L," he said without preamble. "Please hurry back. My son has lost his mind without you."

-END-

XDDD I just wanted to see Light crouching like L and eating sweets. :3 Lemme know what you think!


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